


Knight to Queen's Bishop 3

by Sanalith



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanalith/pseuds/Sanalith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Hermione calls in her life debt for saving Snape's life, she has a rather unorthodox request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knight to Queen's Bishop 3

Hermione always thought she could learn the most about a person by the way he or she talked. Accent might give away a homeland. Tone generally indicated current emotions and feelings. Word choice often revealed education.  
  
Not so with Severus Snape.  
  
When Hermione replaced Madam Pince as librarian at Hogwarts, she settled into a comfortable relationship with her former professors. She’d always related better to people older than herself, even as a child, and that trait continued. Snape, of course, was the exception. He ignored her when he could and answered in monosyllables when he couldn’t. She never took it personally, since he treated the rest of the staff in the exact same way, but she still wished she could somehow break his outer shell.  
  
She hadn’t helped save him from Nagini’s bite for nothing, after all.  
  
And that’s when the perfect plan smacked her right between the eyes.  
  
One Friday evening, about two years into her tenure, she walked purposefully down to the dungeons and rapped loudly on his door. She knew he’d be there, as it wasn’t his turn to prowl the halls for misbehaving students and she happened to know he hadn’t given any detentions that day. (Most likely because his classes had been filled with Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws.)  
  
She was considering knocking again when he finally cracked open the door, his eyes full of suspicion. When he focused on her face, the eyes immediately narrowed.  
  
“What do _you_ want?” he demanded unceremoniously.  
  
Not expecting any sort of warm welcome, Hermione replied just as bluntly. “I’m here to claim my life debt.”  
  
She practically felt Snape stiffen at her words.When he’d approached her after his healing process was complete, he’d stiffly and _very_ reluctantly acknowledged the debt. At the time, she tried to wave it off, but he wouldn’t have any of it.  
  
“As much as I’d absolutely love to pretend this event never took place,” he sneered, “one cannot simply ignore thousands of years of Wizarding convention simply because it’s convenient. The debt exists, end of discussion.”  
  
Part of Hermione had wanted to go off on a diatribe of how she felt about honoring ancient traditions _just because_ , but she realized that saying the debt meant nothing could be construed as saying his _life_ was equally worthless, and she didn’t want that. Instead, she nodded her head in acquiescence and instead promised to redeem the debt only when she felt it was most needed.  
  
And now here she was.  
  
For one brief second, she saw him slip back into Battle Mode. He might not like her, but he had _just_ enough respect to assume that if she was calling in her debt, it was for something important.  
  
“What must I do?” he asked simply.  
  
“Play a game.”  
  
For one brief, blissful second, Hermione had the pleasure of seeing Severus Snape truly confused, and then mask came slamming back down.  
  
“I beg your pardon?”  
  
Hermione reached into her bag and produced a chess board. “Every night for the next month, I am going to come down to your chambers and we are going to play this game. I will remain a minimum of two hours, and after that you can feel free to boot me out your door. Once the month is completed, I will consider your debt repaid in full.”  
  
 _Oh, that’s interesting,_ she thought silently, as Snape struggled to comprehend her instructions. _I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being turn quite that shade of red before!_  
  
When he could finally speak, his voice was low and dangerous. “Life debts are not _games_ , Miss Granger,” he growled, his voice pitched in a way that normally sent terror down the spines of even seventh year Slytherins. “If you believe I will participate in the farce, you are sadly mistaken.”  
  
“Actually, as far as I can see, you don’t have a choice,” Hermione replied briskly. “Wizarding law clearly states that a life debt can be redeemed for any price chosen by the person who holds it, and that person is under no obligation to explain their reasons or motivations. In short, I order, you obey, the end.” She smiled sweetly. “Is not not the case?”  
  
Snape couldn’t argue and she knew it, so without waiting for a response she shouldered her way into his chamber, the chess board clutched tightly in her hands. She took a moment to admire the simplistic but elegant layout of the room, then plunked herself down on his couch and placed the board on a coffee table. She took the next few moments to set up the pieces, loving the feel of the smooth ivory in her fingers. Ever since her first year, she’d never had any interest in Wizard’s chess, and instead kept the set her grandfather had given her as a child.  
  
Looking up, she saw Snape still standing at the door, starring at her, as though he couldn’t believe this was truly happening.  
  
Sighing, Hermione took pity on him. “This _isn’t_ a game, I’ll have you know. In exchange for saving your life, I want to be a part of it. Since you won’t acknowledge me otherwise, it’s come to this.” She gestured to the board. “I’m not even asking for conversation, since I know you won’t provide it anyway. And I _did_ attempt to pick an activity you might actually enjoy. Is this truly so much to ask?”  
  
Snape didn’t answer, but she never expected him to. Instead, he silently shut the door, stalked over to the table, and lowered himself into the chair opposite her. He looked at the board briefly, then reached out and stiffly rotated it one hundred and eighty degrees.  
  
Hermione smirked. She should have known he’d only play black.  
  
******  
  
And that was how she came to know Severus Snape. Unlike her other friends and colleagues, he gave her no chance to learn about him through discussion. No vocal clues, no velvet-over-steel-voice, nothing. But by the time their month concluded, the game taught Hermione everything she ever wanted to know.  
  
She knew he’d be a dominant player, that she’d lose more than she won, but that didn’t bother her one bit. Chess was simply a metaphor for war, and Severus Snape was _very_ well versed in the art of battle. He excelled at strategy and methodology, and - as intelligent as she was - Hermione soon learned he could read many, many more moves ahead than she could ever hope to.  
  
What she didn’t quite expect was how seriously he took their games. She expected him to simply resign himself to the idea and to get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, but she should have known he’d never do anything halfway. He always showed her the door promptly when her two hours were up, but one evening they were still in the middle of a game and, when she made to pack up, he physically shoved her back down and snapped that the game wasn’t finished.  
  
She also learned to read his moods through his gameplay. When he’d had a particularly horrendous, dunderhead-filled day, he didn’t merely beat her in the game, he slaughtered her. He pounded her pieces into submission with blitzkrieg after blitzkrieg, smashing her defenses before she’d had a chance to even build them. On days when he was calmer, the games proceeded at a much slower pace, filled with intricate strategies, bait-and-switch maneuvers, and creative planning.  
  
On occasion, Hermione did manage to win, and his reaction was much more subdued than she would have imagined. He never complimented her, of course, unless words like “reckless” and “unorthodox” were supposed to be positive feedback, but every win seemed to raise his opinion of her ever so slightly.  
  
It was a start.  
  
Perhaps the biggest assistance in learning Snape’s personality were the pieces he chose to favor. Hermione noticed that all players had certain pieces they moved more than others. She liked her bishops, for example. She pegged Snape for a knight, and she was right. The complex movements fit his personality best. What she didn’t expect, however, was that he also played his king constantly.  
  
Overall chess strategy was fairly simple, or so Hermione always thought. The king stays put deep in home territory, protected by his little army, while the queen whirled around the board and got down to the everyday business of killing her opponents. (Hermione used to joke with her grandfather that it was a metaphor for life - the man relaxes while the woman does all the work - and he always laughed.) Not so with Snape. Practically every third or fourth move, he limped his king across the board, as though he couldn’t bare to simply let it stay put. Though it was difficult for the king to truly capture any pieces, he played it as deftly as he did a pawn, using it to set the stage for more powerful pieces to weave in and out. Hermione found it beyond fascinating that he would expose his lifeline to such venerability.  
  
Then again, she doubted Severus Snape had ever won any prizes for playing it safe. It was always all or nothing.  
  
Though her month ended all too soon, Hermione had no regrets. They hardly spoke at all during their meetings, unless it was to discuss the game, but she now understood Severus Snape better than she’d ever thought possible. It was astounding how much a silent game could tell, but in this case, a single move was worth a thousand words.  
  
When she packed up her chess board for the last time, she felt Snape’s eyes on her, and she gave him a small smile.  
  
“You’re a free man, Professor,” she said quietly. “Your debt is paid, and even though I know you had no choice in the matter, I still thank you for the time we’ve spent together. It was...enjoyable.”  
  
He made no reply, so she closed her bag and walked toward the door. It wasn’t until her hand was on the knob that he spoke.  
  
“I have no time to continue such trivialities every night. They’ve inconvenienced me, put me behind on my marking, and allowed students to go undisciplined with lack of detention.” A pause. “But you will never improve your game up to my standards without constant practice. You’ve obviously shown improvement under my guidance___”  
  
 _Guidance!_ Hermione sniffed at that, recalling all the evenings he crushed her game after game without so much as a by-your-leave.  
  
“___and without continual practice such improvements will be wasted.” Another pause. “Perhaps once a week would be sufficient to continue your practice.”  
  
Hermione’s lips curved into a smile. “I think once a week will indeed be sufficient, Professor.”  
  
 _Let him dominate the board all he wants_ , she thought, opening the door and walking out, her heart light.  
  
She’d just won the most important battle of all.


End file.
